Milestone One

Overview: The final project for this course is the creation of a supply chain evaluation. Supply chain management (SCM) is a holistic view of a company's efforts to source, procure, receive, store, and deliver products. These products can be raw materials for a manufacturing process, consumer goods for a retail chain, or a collection of items that will be joined in some way before ultimate delivery to the customer. In today's global economic environment, SCM takes on an increasing level of complexity as companies attempt to reduce costs, drive efficiency, and remain compliant with the corporate social responsibilities that today's consumers demand.

Prompt: For this milestone, you will submit an assessment of the supply and demand of the client's company and its product flow, as discussed in the Walmart China: Supply Chain Transportation case study. You will also evaluate the network sourcing strategy of your client company to identify areas that may be in need of improvement and will leave room for future expansion.

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

II. Demand Forecasting: In this section, first assess the supply and demand side of your client company's product flow, including the customer's needs and the supplier's capabilities, in order to then identify potential alignments that will keep cost and waste at a minimum.

A. Evaluation

1. Analyze your client company's suppliers in terms of their abilities to meet the demand of customers during steady-state and peak operations. How effective are each supplier's inventory reorder points and economic order quantities? Support your analysis with quantitative examples.

2. Additionally, describe demand-forecasting constraints that exist within the supply chain. For example, consider the distance of the stores and the compatibility of the products in terms of shipping, storage, and so on.

III. Sourcing: In this section, first evaluate the network sourcing strategy of your client company in order to then identify possible areas in need of improvement that will leave room for future expansion.

A. Evaluation: Assess the current network sourcing strategy and determine whether or not the number and quality of suppliers is the optimal mix for the operation. To what extent do the current suppliers meet steady-state and peak demand? Are they consistently providing products that meet or exceed company quality standards? Defend your assessment with examples.

B. Recommendations

1. Recommend a strategy to optimize the sourcing network that takes into account current operations and leaves room for future expansion. Be sure to consider any alternative sources of materials available to the organization in your response.

Note: For this milestone, you will complete critical elements II.A, III.A, and III.B.1. As a reminder, you will need to complete additional critical elements (II.B and III.B.2-3) for this part of the final submission of your final project. Keep those elements in mind as you work through this milestone.

Rubric
Guidelines for Submission: Your paper should be a 3- to 4-page Microsoft Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, one-inch margins, and at least three sources cited in APA format.